


An Obsession With Love

by RobberBaroness



Series: Darkest Timeline [1]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Descent into Madness, F/M, Heavy Angst, Obsession, Trope Bingo Round 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: The dark side of a knight's love for his lady.  (Or: maybe we've been getting the story wrong.)
Relationships: Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac, Guinevere/Mordred (Arthurian)
Series: Darkest Timeline [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598476
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	An Obsession With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever get one of those horrible ideas in your head that just won't leave? Yeah. I tried to keep it all as in-character as possible, but you be the judge of that.
> 
> This also ended up filling the trope bingo prompt "Dark Fic", so I guess I have that...

The door closed quietly behind Lancelot, so quietly Guinevere almost didn’t hear it. She turned to him, smiling, the same smile that had broken his heart a thousand times before, the smile that kept him from achieving the grail, the smile that haunted him day and night. He could almost hate the beauty of that smile- that was, if he could have ever hated anything about his queen. Never.

“Lancelot? Is there something you wish to speak to me about?”

“Your Majesty. I-”

He had thought the words over in his head, but there was still no easy way to say them.

“I had to speak with you. So many years I’ve held back from speaking for fear of insulting you, but in my heart I’ve sinned and it is all the same in the eyes of god.”

“What are you talking about?” She still didn’t seem especially perturbed. It was a fact of life for her- the grass was green, the sun shone, Lancelot was religious to the point of madness. Hearing him say odd things was hardly a new occurrence.

“My queen. I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. I cannot be silent about it any longer.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as Guinevere tried to maintain her smile. She wasn’t succeeding very well.

“Surely you can’t be serious,” she said at last. Lancelot took a step towards her, then knelt upon the floor.

“Please, Your Majesty. Give me some task to perform. Bid me kill, bid me die, bid me do anything that I might have the chance of winning your love in return.”

The remains of the smile left Guinevere’s face.

“You forget yourself, Sir Knight. Leave now and we shall forget this conversation ever happened.”

“You cannot ask me to do that, Your Majesty. I cannot leave without some hope of your love in return.”

For the first time, there was something that looked like fear in Guinevere’s eyes. It wasn’t fair. Lancelot wasn’t Maleagant, some barbarian with only lust in his heart, who would steal her away along with a company of her ladies. He loved her. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t.

“It may not have occurred to you,” she said, and the tone in her voice was an icy one Lancelot had never heard from her before, “that I love my husband. I did not intend to tell him of your...of this, but if you do not leave now he will know. Please. You are my dearest friend, and I would not see you punished. Please, for your own sake, leave me!”

He could not stand to hear that. Of all the things she could have said, that was the one thing he could not endure. Of course she loved Arthur, he loved him too, but that was a love of ones’ lord, an obligation! How could she compare it to what there was between them?

Lancelot reached out to her, and she pulled back abruptly. It could not have hurt more if she had physically struck him.

“I’m going to scream,” she said, and without even thinking Lancelot moved forward and clasped his hand over her mouth. She struggled, but he wrapped his arms around her and the strong arms of a knight cannot be outfought by the delicate ones of a lady. Near tears, he began to kiss her on the neck, on her soft skin, wishing he could hold her tight and comfort her at once.

“If you love him,” he whispered, “if you do not love me, the sin is only mine. You’ll go to heaven with him, I’ll go to hell, as I’ve known I would since the grail. It is no sin for you to be loved against your will. I would never hurt you. I love you, my Guinevere, I love you.”

His hands moved down her body and Guinevere redoubled her efforts at struggling. He was not lying when he said he would never hurt her- how could he hurt her when he was so in love?- but he could not keep his hand over her mouth and hold her still for much longer. He ripped off the blue sleeve from her arm in one motion- the same color as the sleeve she had once given to him, to carry as her favor for the world to see- and whispering apologies all the while, he tied it delicately about her mouth. She was shaking now, not in an attempt to dislodge him but out of sheer terror, and Lancelot felt tears falling from his own eyes.

“I am so sorry to cause you fear,” he said as he lifted the hem of her dress. “I never meant for this to happen. I am not Maleagant, I would never harm you in any way, not even your soul. It is no sin, it is no sin.” He kept repeating the words he had already spoken, in the hopes that somehow they would reach her, but she only kept shaking in his arms, shaking and crying silently, and he could not stand to look at her face for a moment longer.

There was no joy in their coupling, only what Lancelot felt to be a horrible inevitability. The bare flesh of her legs that he had dreamed of, the feel of her body against his, the sweet scent of her perfume- none of the things he had fantasized about brought him happiness. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, she was not supposed to be crying or struggling, and any pleasure he felt was the pleasure of sin, the kind of sin he had fought against all his life only to fall into now.

It wasn’t hurting her, it couldn’t be hurting her, he was being so gentle, but even still he could hear the muffled screams from behind her gag. He stroked her hair, trying to calm her, but each touch from his hands only seemed to bring her more distress, not less.

He held her still when he had completed his crime (not a crime, nothing is a crime when you are in love, but it felt like a crime nonetheless) simply hoping that she would stop shaking in his arms. It was only distantly that he could hear the sound of voices, and at the moment he could not have cared less what he heard.

“I told you, I saw him go in here! If you’re so certain it’s innocent, take a look for yourself!”

If there was one face besides Arthur’s Lancelot would have wished to see least in the world when the door opened, it was Gareth’s. Gareth, his protege, the boy who worshipped him to an almost idolatrous degree, looking on him as if he were a monster to be destroyed. The boy couldn't even move for a moment, so stunned at the sight in front of him, but when at last he came to himself, it was with an uncharacteristic loathing.

“Take your hands off of her!”

At that cry, Lancelot’s sorrow turned to rage. How dare he? How dare that mewling boy, barely more than a newlywed, think he understood anything of what had happened? How dare a beardless child, hardly even a knight, think to command him? The world around him turned red, and with one swift motion he had Gareth’s own sword out of his hands and was bringing it down across his neck.

The next minutes were a blur, more a series of images than a coherent stream of events. He saw Guinevere clawing at the gag in her mouth, heard her screaming for help. He saw himself running Gaheris through and knocking Agravain to the ground. He felt his feet carrying him forward through a stream of blood red. Looking back, he saw the worst sight of all- Guinevere crying onto Mordred’s shoulder. Mordred, that little snake, whom everyone knew desired her.

She wouldn’t be safe with Mordred, he knew, and it was the greatest act of cowardice that drove him to run, rather than staying to protect her from him even if it had meant slaughtering all of Camelot.

***

“In a way,” said Gawain, “it was my fault.” King Arthur was holding Guinevere tightly to him, and she was pressing herself against him so as to nearly merge into one being. Mordred sat on his own, his expression unreadable. “Agravain came to me and asked me to accompany him and our brothers to confront the queen and Lancelot, whom he believed were having an affair. I said no. It was cowardice on my part- I was afraid it might be true, and did not want to have to see it for myself. I believed slander against a good woman, and because of that I allowed a great evil to occur, and three of my brothers are dead.”

“You are not the one to blame here,” said Arthur quietly. It was not the King Arthur he knew who sat before him, but one hardened and murderous. Gawain had only ever seen that look on the battlefield. It always reminded him of stories about Uther.

“It means war, doesn’t it?” interjected Mordred. “War against Joyous Gard. You’ll have to ready your men, probably go to battle yourself.”

“I’ll offer him single combat, if he’ll accept it,” said Gawain. “I’d bring his head back on a pike if you hadn’t outlawed that sort of thing. But Mordred is right. You will be expected on the battlefield.”

It was then that Guinevere finally spoke up.

“Don’t leave me alone here, please…”

“No, I shall not. Would you feel safe with Mordred as regent?”

Guinevere nodded.

“Then so he shall be, and I will ride out to see that monster we called our friend die.”

Arthur and Guinevere embraced, and Gawain closed his eyes. None of them could see the look on Mordred’s face as he looked at Guinevere. 

If she’d seen it, she would have recognized it at once.


End file.
